Did Women really always work?

[MaggieBroonofGlebeSt]

Genuine question but definitely most interested if possible in actual data not anecdotal. On most threads about SAHMs people will always say that women have always worked apart from the rare recent middle classes who are an outlier.
Is that true? For example I was reading Call the Midwife; none of the women seem to have a job despite being very working class. Reading old books I never read about married women with kids from any background who worked.
In my family I don't know of any married women who worked but fair enough, they were generally wellish off.
All that is anecdotal though!
If women did work, who looked after their kids? I honestly don't see how it would be possible for most women with children.

oh really ? I can definitely remember Miss and Mrs teachers in my school in the 70s.

The Broons are an interesting example because Dundee is famous for being a city where the women worked and the men were accused of being drunken layabouts. Not sure how true that was about the men, but their options were only the docks or travelling construction crews, or going off on whaling ships. In Dundee the mills were staffed by women. It’s really interesting. But no, I don’t know who looked after the kids too young to be at school (or work).

Not so far back in time, but my dad died and mam went back to work full time. This was in 1967. I was 6 years old, and would walk home from school, let myself in (latch key kid) and play until she got in at about 5:30.
I was capable of making myself a jam or marmite sandwich 😅
Weekends and holidays, I was either sent to my nanna or aunty (mams sister).
She was not allowed to have a mortgage in her sole name, so a distant relative 'bought' the house with her deposit, then she made all the payments etc.,
When he decided to get married, he kicked us out and claimed the house as his own.
It was hard being a single working mother.

My late mother did early morning cleaning offices. Father worked nights and she left about an hour before he returned. This was in the 1970’s when it was okay to leave young children alone. Her mother always worked through WW11 and afterwards.

Late MIL also worked.

There was always work around that women would take up many would have absolutely had to regardless of laws

my great great worked in the mills when married with children (my nanny remembered being left alone when they were very young) my nanny always worked, my mum always worked

my dad side all women worked but different country and very very poor

Working class women with or without children always worked. Sometimes piece work at home, but often outside too. Wives in lots of businesses were an integral part of the business, often keeping the books. Historically they sometimes took over the business if the husband died and made a success of it because they had already veen involved - trades like publicans, goldsmiths, shopkeepers etc.

My ancestry is very middle class & only one of my great grandmothers worked - but she’s still a bit of a household name as was a bit of a trailblazer.

i just flicked through Round About a Pound a Week, which is the account of working class families in Lambeth in 1913, living on about one pound a week, and all of the women seem to have given up work with motherhood.

My mum worked, my grandmother worked, and her mother also worked, in carpet mills.

On my dads side, my grandmother and her mother before her were farmers' wives, so probably not quite 'sahm's'

Of course. My maternal grandmother was a cleaner (born 1923) and my paternal one (born 1926) worked in a Domestos factory. Kids basically fended for themselves.

Sorry should have been clearer my MIL was not in Britain. But the social history I have read definitely talks about it happening to British women, but earlier.
After WW1 a lot of women lost their jobs to men returning from the war, causing considerable hardship if they had no other support.

My granny was not allowed to work after marriage at 19 years old, as her employer didn’t allow it. So no, she remained unemployed until her children had grown up

In Margaret Thatcher's autobiography, she writes about how they all - her mother, her sister and herself - worked in her father's shop. One of Margaret's jobs, as quite a young child, was to go and call on the regular customers and collect their weekly orders.

One of my grandmothers worked as a nurse until marriage and then stopped before starting again during the war -her neighbour looked after my dad

My other grandma worked 3 separate cleaning jobs cause my grandad drank his wages my mum was the oldest of 6 and from 10 looked after them all -not sure what happened before then in terms of childcare

Further back my family has a history of making lace pieces -usually from their kitchen so the children will have just been in the house whilst they did it

The Broons are actually quite clearly from Glasgow. I know now they've changed it to make them Dundonians, but in the early ones they talk about Celtic and Rangers and lots of other wee hints, and Paw works in shipbuilding, so it makes sense really.

Working didn't have to be outside the home. Home based work included sewing, taking in laundry, ironing, piecework (making up boxes etc), taking in babies and children, making things or raising things you could sell at market like eggs, veg etc.

My grandfather's mother was widowed with nine children and made ends meet by making sausages from home.

I think people are forgetting two things here.

One - that housework and keeping a family alive, well, clean and fed in times past was damned hard work.

Two - that until very recently, men's wages were considerably higher than women's, and that the majority of families were able to manage on the man's wage alone. I can distinctly remember my parents (both born in the 1920's) telling me that women were expected to leave work and become a housewife on marriage, and that is why men were paid more - because they had to support the family.

Women in my family have always worked. Not 9-5 office jobs but ones that can be fitted around the family - cleaning / shop work / factory work. Children looked after by neighbours or brought to work with their mums.

Only a few women had opportunities to truly work 'like men' and earn equal money until really very recently, despite people believing women in their 60s had the opportunity to have saved as much for their pensions as their male counterparts.

Even in the 90s, it was assumed females were secretaries / admin assistants, it was really tough to be treated as an equal.

Actually just remembered that one of my great great grandmothers, married to a doctor, set up a nursery in 19th century Manchester, so there must have been babies to use it!

oh I watched a documentary about the mills in Dundee I can't remember where I watched it maybe BBC Scotland or Alba it was really interesting and the women of Dundee looked terrifying 😃

I also live in what was a mill town so the women would have been weavers or cleaned/worked in the "big houses"

I don't think anyone is forgetting that, as I've said before in the thread. It's whether women have always had paid work even once they had children, which is what is often said on other threads on here, and I had doubted. Lots of fascinating info on this thread imo.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/womens_work_01.shtml

My mum has always worked.

Born working class London 1944. Went into to workforce at age 16. Been working ever since except for 1978-1985 when she had pre-school kids. Retired when my dad did maybe 2010?

Her mum has always worked. Started as a waitress prewar, then volunteered and was trained in office work. Once mum was born in 1944 she handed mum over to her sister to look after during the day and got straight back to work. My grandad was in the far east when my mum was born and didn't meet her until he was demobbed in 1946. She worked continuously in office jobs until retiring.

My dad's mum has more gaps in her employment. Entered the civil service in 1928 and was forced to resign when she got married in 1940. Had a series of miscarriages before having my dad in 1944 and then another series of miscarriages. She went back to work in about 1960 for about ten years until grandad retired but she couldn't get another good job (reserved for the men) so worked in a shop.

My dad has put together my family tree and has biographies of quite a few ancestors because a lot of them were army or navy. There's records of their wives' employment as well.

Yes, some women have always worked.

Women in my family always worked. Very working class northern mill families. My grandad talked about being left to fend for himself with his sister. This was before he started school. and their mum worked 12 hour days. She would buy hot food from the market on her way home for them. The rest of the day they would scrounge outside the jelly baby factory and they must have got some as my Grandad had lost all his teeth before he was 20.

My grandma was sent to an elderly great aunt during the week when she was about 3. She was still traumatised by it in her 80s. But her mum was working and this was her only child care.

What period are you talking about?

The only generation of women in my family, both in the paternal line and maternal line, that work, is my generation down (I'm 57). My mother never worked, nor did her sisters (well, one did briefly but gave it up upon her marriage aged 23), or their mother, or her sister. My father's mother didn't work, and nor did his sister. Dh's mother has never worked, and nor have the mother's of any of my previous boyfriends, apart from one, who cooked school dinners.

I don't know about the generation prior to my grandparents unfortunately.